Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Texas and the Tea Partiers

Unless there's been a big shift in the final week of the campaign in Texas it appears that Debra Medina will fall well short of making a Republican runoff.

A 20% performance for Medina would still be impressive, given the two political titans she's facing off against. But her lack of sustained momentum after peaking at 24% in our polling three weeks ago will also show several limitations of the 'Tea Party' movement:

1) Just as we saw with Patrick Hughes in Illinois if you can't compete with the big boys financially, you can't compete with the big boys, period. Perry and Hutchison have had the funds to saturate the airwaves and Medina hasn't, and that's why her name recognition was still under 50% on our final poll of the Texas race. These Republican insurgents may not need a ton of money to make some noise, but they do need a ton of money to actually win anything. Without the interference of the Club for Growth or some similarly deep pocketed group Medina never had a chance.

2) Republican voters may be more open to candidates from outside the mainstream of their party this year but there's a limitation to how far outside the mainstream you can be and still hope to get some traction. 79% of Texas Republicans have a favorable opinion of George W. Bush. So Medina made a big mistake by allowing the perception to be created that Bush's administration may have had something to do with 9/11. Tea Party candidates need to be able to avoid the 'kook' label if they're going to be successful- it will be interesting in Kentucky to see if some of Rand Paul's past statements end up really hurting him the way Medina's did her.

For all the hype about the Tea Party movement I think it's entirely possible Marco Rubio will end up being the only candidate associated with it to win a major primary this year- that will certainly be the case if its folks don't start raising more money.

A Tea Party voter is not a single entity sitting around waiting for a random phone call. They WILL vote. They WILL inspire others to vote. Better change the oil in your spin machine... it'll be a Perry/Medina runoff.

Debra Medina Candidate for Governor of Texas, stated she is against Public welfare for illegal immigrants as a tea party follower. If the SANCTUARY STATE OF CALIFORNIA is anything to go by, this lady should be a winner to all taxpayers in the Lone Star State. Read this commentary by Los Angeles county Supervisor Michael Antonovich here are some facts:

"Children of illegal immigrants cost our Los Angeles County nearly $570 million in welfare and food stamps in 2009. Approximately 23 percent of all CalWORKS and food stamp issuances in the county are made to parents who reside in the United States illegally, and collect benefits for their native-born children.

Add this to $350 million for public safety and almost $500 millions for health care, and the total cost for illegal immigrants to county taxpayers far exceeds $1 billion a year, not including the millions of dollars of education, the cost of incarceration," according to Antonovich.

I WONDER HOW MUCH THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION COSTS IN TEXAS AND YOUR STATE?

"Perry won this not in rural and small town Texas but in metro Houston. This bodes well for him in the general election, since it indicates strength in the home base of the well regarded Democratic nominee, former Houston Mayor Bill White, who was nominated by an overwhelming margin."